Review: It Only Happens in the Movies

By Holly Bourne
Available now from HMH Books for Young Readers
Review copy

It Only Happens in the Movies looks like a romcom. But really, it is the bildungsroman of protagonist Audrey, who hates romcoms. Her parents perfect romance fell apart and now she lives with her mother (who is in the throes of a breakdown), her brother is at college and no help, and her father lives with his new family. Her recent breakup caused her to quit drama to avoid her ex. Yet just as she starts a school essay on the terrible fantasy of romcoms, she finds herself living in one with her new coworker.

When Audrey starts working at a movie theater, she knows Harry is bad news, even before everyone warns her not to get invested in his flirting. Then he casts her in his zombie movie and Audrey starts regaining confidence in her talent as well as falling for the parts of him that aren't a suave ladies' man.

I enjoyed how UK author Holly Bourne used and subverted common YA romance tropes (from both books and movies). Audrey's issues are very realistic and often painful. I truly sympathized with her when the full truth of her first relationship came out. I also really enjoyed that Audrey not only made personal growth, but found the support she needed from friends and family over the course of the novel. I particularly loved that her friends didn't begrudge her being distant while she went through a difficult time.

It Only Happens in the Movies is a fun YA novel that seems like it is going to veer into cliche at times, but makes up for it by completely sticking the landing. It is a great choice for contemporary fans.

Review: Sunset in Central Park

Second in the From Manhattan with Love series
By Sarah Morgan
Available now from HQN (Harlequin)
Review copy

I felt that SLEEPLESS IN MANHATTAN (my review) was charming, but spent too much time setting up the other two romances in the From Manhattan with Love series. Luckily, SUNSET IN CENTRAL PARK keeps the focus on Frankie and Matt.

Paige and Eva, Frankie's best friends, don't lack romance entirely. Eva's prospective hero is mentioned once at the beginning of the book, and then she shows up only in a friend capacity, both offering support and needing it. Jake and Paige's relationship is referenced, but Jake only shows up briefly, mostly to serve as Matt's best friend.

Matt has been in love with Frankie for a long time, but Frankie doesn't believe in love and is reluctant to trust any romantic partners. Her father cheated on her mom, her mom decided to continually pursue men, and there was an attempted sexual assault. Frankie's issues did not come out of nowhere. But when Matt's flirting gets blatant enough, Frankie realizes that she wants to respond, even if she has no clue how.

SUNSET IN CENTRAL PARK is really Frankie's story. Matt is cute and wonderful, but the focus has to be on Frankie since she's the one keeping them apart. Matt is all in from the beginning. (A bit too all in for my taste, at times. Let a girl decide to date you on her own!) I did like that as Frankie confronted her past, she realized that some things were as bad as she remembered, but that she'd inflated other things in her mind because she'd been a hurting teen girl.

The bright purple cartoons and hearts cover promises a light read, but Sarah Morgan has served up a cute romance surrounded by darkness. There's also a significant subplot about a woman escaping her abusive ex. It's not a difficult read, but I suspect Eva's story will be the most bubbly and effervescent in the series. Frankie has too many sharp edges for a romance that is smooth summer sailing.

I thought SUNSET IN CENTRAL PARK improved on SLEEPLESS IN MANHATTAN and I look forward to Eva's romance to conclude the series.

Review Rerun: Returning to Shore

I recently traveled to St. Simons Island, Georgia. When you cross from the mainland to the island using the causeway, you might notice extra large holes in the highway dividers. These allow the terrapin turtles to make it across.

The nearby Jekyll Island is the home of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.  This center offers a chance to learn about these animals and conservation efforts, and to participate yourself. Since it is currently nesting season, efforts to ensure that the turtle nests are protected are in high gear.

Thinking about these animals led me to remember RETURNING TO SHORE, which I first reviewed in 2014.

By Corinne Demas
Available now from Carolrhoda Books (Lerner)
Review copy

RETURNING TO SHORE is a brief book, not particularly fast paced but a quick read by virtue of its brevity.  It's cover is bleak, but the book is anything but.  It's a simple tale, enlivened with a touch of quirk and symbolism.

Clare has lived with her mother since her parent's divorce.  She loved her stepfather, and still misses him, even as her mother is marrying for the third time.  But she doesn't have much time to contemplate her dislike of her new stepfather before she's swept off to a small Cape Cod island to live with her father while her mother honeymoons.  Her father knows absolutely nothing about raising a teenager, and he's distracted by his work with turtles (terrapins, to be more specific).  It's egg-laying season, and he intends to make sure that those eggs survive.

Seriously, it's a book about a daughter and father finding each other and themselves, and the father is obsessed with turtles and ensuring that their offspring survive.  It's kind of absurd and obvious and it works.  It's partially because turtle conservation is a real, serious thing.  But it's more because the characters are richly drawn and their development is subtle.

In a novel as short and simple as RETURNING TO SHORE, everything hangs on the protagonist.  I think I was first drawn to the clear gulf between what Clare knows and what the narrative insinuates that she doesn't.  That her mother's relationships, particularly that with her first stepfather, are more complicated than she's been led to believe.  Then there's her father, who knows quite a bit that he holds too tightly - knowledge that he should tell his daughter, at least if they're going to have a real relationship.

There's also a small subplot about Clare making friends of necessity with the other teen girl who lives on the island.  There is, of course, inherent friction in the relationship made more out of proximity than true interest in what the other has to offer.  At the same time, it's not like it's two people hanging out who secretly hate each other.  Then, as Clare learns more about her friend, it conflicts with the things she's learned about her dad.  And it's more than just differing environmental views.

RETURNING TO SHORE is a novel that doesn't rely on romance to deliver deeply felt emotion.  It's a wonderful coming of age story, with a picturesque setting and a strong environmental message lurking not-far-back in the background. Is it strange to say that this is a book for Studio Ghibli fans?  Because it is.

Review: Defending Taylor

Book seven in the Hundred Oaks series
By Miranda Kenneally
Available now from Sourcebooks
Review copy

I am a massive fan of Miranda Kenneally's Hundred Oaks series.   Her stories are appealingly contemporary, tackling issues like class differences, sexism, or fame in the internet age.  Her characters are realistic, each with their own flaws and strengths.  DEFENDING TAYLOR has all those qualities that make this series such a strong one.  DEFENDING TAYLOR also returns to her classic, sporty heroines after JESSIE'S GIRL.

To be misleadingly frank, DEFENDING TAYLOR isn't my favorite novel Kenneally has ever written.  It's stronger than many others I've read this year, but didn't have the appeal to me of many of her other novels.

The eponymous Taylor is a senator's daughter and former incoming captain of her private school's soccer team.  But she got expelled, and now she's going to public school her senior year.  She isn't making new friends, and she's on the outs with her family.  The only one who is there for her is Ezra, her brother's best friend who is home from college for his own mysterious reasons.  Of course, Taylor is reluctant to trust him ever since he stood her up at her sweet sixteen.

Romantic tension has been long simmering between them, and now they have the shared experience of struggling with their families' expectations of them as they decide what they want in life.  It's cute, but I didn't feel much spark when reading.  There's very little standing in the way of their relationship except for that missed party.  The explanation, when it comes, makes sense and I believe Ezra would keep it secret even though that was a bad decision.  But it felt unbalanced to me because Ezra's issues are a side note while Taylor's are the focus.

Although it is not instantly revealed, DEFENDING TAYLOR doesn't take too long to explain why Taylor was kicked out.  She was caught with a bunch of Adderall (that was actually her boyfriend's).  Taylor didn't snitch, because her boyfriend would lose his scholarship and she can weather the storm better with her powerful father (somewhat reasonable) and because she would be socially ostracized as a snitch (if this were an old-timey teen movie). 

She's pissed that her dad made no efforts to protect her (even though he believes in not throwing the family name around) and her boyfriend didn't confess to protect her (for the same reasons she didn't confess to protect her).  Which is totally fair.  There are mitigating factors, but no one stood by her, and that hurts no matter what.

But here's the thing: the police don't get involved.  She isn't tried as a drug dealer.  Her school treats her solely as an occasional user, which she admits to being.  (In fact, they drug-tested her and she had Adderall in her system.)  She gets kicked out of her posh school, but she doesn't even have to go to rehab or do community service.  DEFENDING TAYLOR makes some great points about how drug users are demonized in the US, but I got tired of Taylor whining about being punished for a crime she didn't commit.  She got caught due to her boyfriend's carelessness, but she is being punished for a crime she committed.  I wish more of the focus had been on the excessiveness of how the public reacts (which is, to be fair, a big deal in the story when the press gets wind of the story).

DEFENDING TAYLOR is a cute summer read, but sometimes I got a little fed up with the heroine.

Review: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories

Edited by Stephanie Perkins
Stories by Leigh Bardugo, Francesca Lia Block, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Brandy Colbert, Tim Federle, Lev Grossman, Nina LaCour, Stephanie Perkins, Veronica Roth, Jon Skovron, Jennifer E. Smith
Available now from
Review copy

Stephanie Perkins' follow-up anthology to MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME is another set of twelve strong stories by popular and up-and-coming authors, including adult author Lev Grossman.  The only repeated author is Perkins herself (who writes a sequel to her story from the first anthology).  The theme of summer is a little looser than the theme of winter holidays, and the stories range wider in tone and style as well.  There's contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, and historical stories.  The protagonists are diverse too, both in skin color and sexuality.

In fact, not all of the stories end happily.  "Sick Pleasure" by Francesca Lia Block tells of a doomed summer romance.  "Souvenirs" by Tim Federle tells of two boys who know they have to break up because one of them is going to college.  "Souvenirs" is one of my favorite stories in the collection, for how it gets lots of messy emotions into so few pages, including those little things that make you love someone even when you know they aren't the best person.

Of the speculative stories, my favorite might have been "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" by Lev Grossman, a groundhog-day tale of a boy and a girl who are trapped in a loop and manage to find shocking beauty in a single mundane (but tragic) day.  Close behind is "Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail" by Leigh Bardugo, which taps into my love of mythological sea creatures.  The inventive ending gets my approval.  Okay, I loved "Last Stand at the Cinegore" by Libba Bray, too.  It's a trippy meta tale about a horror film coming to life and the apathetic cinema workers who are the only ones that can stop it.

The more mundane stories were a bit more uneven to me.  "The End of Love" by Nina LaCour is an adorable story about two girls finding their way to each other while one of them goes through a difficult time. "Love is the Last Resort" by Jon Skovron is a farce about multiple couples who need a few tricks to get them to take that leap of faith and ask each other out.

This made for a very fun read on my plane ride home from California.  (Can you get more summer than that?)  There was only one story I didn't think fit the anthology.  "Inertia" by Veronica Roth was a nifty sci-fi romance, but I'm not sure what it had to do with summer.  Overall, this was a strong set of stories, although not quite as strong as MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME.  I hope for fall and spring sequels!

Review: Wild Swans

By Jessica Spotswood
Available now from Sourcebooks Fire
Review copy

Jessica Spotswood leaves fantasy and historical fiction behind for contemporary, but keeps the themes of sisterhood and family legacies.  WILD SWANS is unlike Spotswood's debut trilogy the Cahill Witch Chronicles in genre, but I think her fans will be satisfied if they make the trip to contemporary with her.

Ivy Milbourn comes from a long line of talented, troubled women, most of whom died tragically.  She is, however, perfectly ordinary.  She pushes herself hard, and her grandfather pushes her harder, but she's generally good at most things but never great.  But those expectations are only one of her burdens.  Her mother abandoned her when she was two, and she's always wondered if there was something wrong with her that drove her mother away.  She gets her chance, fifteen years later, when her mother is forced to move back into her father's house.

With her two other daughters.

Spotswood's writing beautifully expresses Ivy's emotional turmoil as she juggles her family issues, boy problems, and her expectations for herself.  Her intended summer of fun imploded, but she finds far more to enjoy than she first expected.  I thoroughly enjoyed Ivy.  She's refreshingly mature (although she still has the naivety of a sheltered teen), and I thought she struck a really good balance with how she shook things up. 

WILD SWANS is painfully earnest at times.  One of her best friends has a younger sibling who might grow up to be transgender, and for now prefers to identify as a girl instead of a boy.  The other is bisexual, the pioneer of the town's Gay-Straight Alliance, and very vigilant about women's sexual freedom.  These are timely issues that helped flesh out the setting and the secondary characters, but some of the longer scenes felt like Ivy's story stopping for a Very Special Episode.  (At the same thing, I think Spotswood's characters were often saying things that needed to be said.)

For those looking for a summery, feminist bildungsroman, look no farther than WILD SWANS.  It has poetry, hot tattooed guys, and a mother who is a major piece of work (but sometimes makes a few good points).  It's a lovely book, the sort that isn't huge on event but sucks you in anyway because of the characters.

Review: How Many Letters Are In Goodbye?

By Yvonne Cassidy
Available now from Flux
Review copy

HOW MANY LETTERS ARE IN GOODBYE? was originally published in Ireland in 2014, but Flux has now brought it to the USA.  It is the story of Rhea Farrell, who is homeless in New York when the story starts.  She moved to Florida to live with her aunt's family after her father died, but was kicked out.

The story is told in letters to Rhea's mother, who drowned when Rhea was very young.  This conceit did not work well from me, since the letters are usually very exact renditions of events (albeit through Rhea's biased point of view), complete with long passages of dialogue.  There's no commitment to the form.  Short letters between the narrative might've gotten the same point across and been more believable.

I did find the narrative compelling.  Rhea is highly annoying in her self-absorption: everything is about her, even when other characters are telling her it isn't.  At the same time, I understood why she was messed up.  She lost an arm in an accident as a child, her mother drowned, her father was an alcoholic, and her first serious relationship ended with her getting kicked out of the house because it was with a girl.  I thought it was wonderful that she got actual therapy.  But Rhea's journey wasn't always an easy one to read.

Part of that is because Yvonne Cassidy knows how to write secondary characters who are clearly the heroes of their own story.  I particularly missed her friend Sergei when he exited her life.  He was a hustler in a relationship with a cheating, abusive man who Rhea encouraged him to stay with so they could live in his apartment.  I got why their relationship ended, but I did hope for reconciliation once Rhea got some perspective.

HOW MANY LETTERS ARE IN GOODBYE? is a very weighty book.  It's got suicide, alcoholism, teen homelessness, teen prostitution, domestic abuse, coming out going terribly awry - and it definitely aims to tug at the heartstrings in many parts.  I thought it was a very realistic portrait of a teen girl who was struggling with her own identity and a need to accept help from others, and thought it succeeded on those grounds.

Review: The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever

By Jeff Strand
Available now from Sourcebooks Fire
Review copy

Justin, Bobby, and Gabe love making movies.  They just aren't that good at it.  But this time they're going to do it right.  They're going to write a script and everything!  It will be THE GREATEST ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER.

What follows is a predictable tale of everything going wrong, friends falling apart and then coming back together.  What sells this story is the humor.  I was sitting in the Jiffy Lube getting my state inspection done and trying not to crack up in public, because Justin's grandmother was investing the money to produce his picture - and threatening him if he didn't pay her back with interest.  (She was just kidding.  But really, she's gonna get her money back and Justin isn't going to like it if she has to make him.)

I particularly liked the way the boys got involved in the community through their movie.  They sometimes screw it up (waking people early on the weekends being the worst), but sometimes get it just right.   It really emphasized that they were running around in public and making a true effort to get a shambling horde onscreen.

THE GREATEST ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER isn't the type of book to win awards, much like the eponymous movie, but it is a cute and funny little novel.  It definitely made my hurry-up-and-wait chores easier to take!

Review: In Real Life

By Jessica Love
Available now from St. Martin's (Macmillan)
Review copy

Hannah Cho has never met her best friend Nick Cooper in real life.  This spring break, she's going to change that by road-tripping to Las Vegas with her sister and her other best friend.  She's also, finally, going to tell Nick how she feels.

I couldn't wait to read this book!  The cover is adorable, and I always love Vegas and road trips.  I also liked the premise, because I've made many good friends online and meeting them in person for the first time is always a heady experience (despite not being in love with any of them).  Nowadays, online relationships transition into real-life relationships more and more.  It started promising too.  I can almost always empathize with the awkward overachiever.

Yet, I could feel myself getting crankier and crankier as I read.

I felt for Hannah when her big confession didn't go the way she planned.  Nick already has a girlfriend, and is different from the guy she spoke to on the phone in other ways as well.  But ... she keeps acknowledging and then backing away from the fact she brought a lot of her emotional troubles on herself.  Nick already confessed his feelings for her and she turned him down - brutally.  He didn't tell her about his new girl because he was licking his wounds in private. 

I understood why Hannah felt hurt, but once you turn someone down you don't get to whinge endlessly about them moving on.  I was on the side of Grace and Lo (her sister and friend), who were both encouraging her to be honest about her feelings and to please let them enjoy their vacation if she was just going to mope about a tangled snarl of love she caused.  (Actually, I pretty much liked every character but Hannah.)

Worst of all, reading IN REAL LIFE made me feel old.  I think I would've rolled my eyes at this kind of drama even as a teen, but I just had zero patience for it.  IN REAL LIFE had the bones of a story I could've loved, but I just found it grating.

Review: For the Record

By Charlotte Huang
Available now from Delacorte  (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Chelsea has been shunned at her high school ever since her first relationship went horribly awry.  Not even going on a musical talent reality show helped, even though she placed high.  But she's just become the new lead singer of hit rock band Melbourne, and she's going on tour with them this summer.

I loved all the details of the tour, from the rules of the tour bus to the hassle of last minute guest requests.  It hangs together without breaking the point of view, since Chelsea is just learning the ropes too.  In the back of FOR THE RECORD, debut author Charlotte Huang thanks her music agent husband and various bands she was able to talk to for helping her get the details right.  It really does add to atmosphere of the first summer of the best years of Chelsea's life.

In addition to learning the ropes, Chelsea is trying to convince the band members that she's in this for the long haul.  The shadow of their previous singer hangs long over their relationships, particularly with the standoffish Pem.  Beckett is the nicest one to her, but Chelsea struggles with her attraction to him versus the rule of no relationships within the band and crew.  It's much easier to date Lucas Rivers, the teen heartthrob movie star who is into her.

I thought Chelsea's struggles with her self-esteem where realistic.  She knows she's a great singer, and she's comfortable with her body (even if it isn't Hollywood skinny).  Chelsea's fine with herself.  What she isn't fine with is with making new relationships.  She still has trouble with romance and trusting friends due to those high school scars.  Her one friend, Mandy, is along for the ride as a merch girl, and Chelsea worries about the guys clueing in that Mandy really is her only friend.  I thought Huang imbued her heroine with a believable and readable balance of confidence and insecurity.

FOR THE RECORD is one of those books that sucked me in once I started reading it.  I had to see Chelsea succeed.  And, okay, I did wonder if she would end up with any of the guys.  I still appreciated that Chelsea put her career first.  This is one fabulous summer read.

(Why do they tour Texas Houston - Dallas - Austin instead of Austin in the middle?  I don't know.)

Review: Ghosting

By Edith Pattou
Available now from Skyscape (Amazon)
Review copy

I love Edith Pattou's young adult fantasy novels and I'm a big fan of novels in verse, so I couldn't resist giving GHOSTING a try.  It is a contemporary novel about the last night of summer before school starts again.  A group of (semi-) friends heads out: Emma, Maxie, Felix, Brendan, Chloe, and Anil.  There are also two more narrators: Emma's younger sister and a strange boy with a shotgun.

(Okay, and a few poems from the police chief.)

It's very obvious from the beginning of GHOSTING that something is going to go awry.  There's a building tension, right up to the point where it all explodes.  But there's also lots of little human moments between the six teens who are mostly just trying to have a little fun.  Even the cruel Brendan is very humanized.

Some might be put off by the free-verse format, but I think it is well done.  Most of the voices are pretty distinct, and the directness of the address works.  There's a clear logic to how a series of not-that-bad decisions lead to tragedy.  I will admit though that I felt the authorial strings at time.  The way Faith (the little sister) arrives on scene felt blatantly artificial.  And Walter (the boy with the shotgun) felt like a caricature, which was a shame given how deeply the other teens were drawn.

I think GHOSTING will appeal to fans of Ellen Hopkins and Laurie Halse Anderson.  It has a similar feel, both realistic and concerned with social issues.  I'd recommend GHOSTING for the upper YA range, given some of the violence in the novel.

Review: Beyond Clueless

By Linas Alsenas
Available now from Harry N. Abrams (ABRAMS)
Review copy

I keep passing BEYOND CLUELESS in my Kindle and thinking, "What book is that?  It's marked that I read it."  Then I open it up and remember.  "Oh yeah!  That one."  BEYOND CLUELESS was a cute little read (with a subplot about sexual assault), but the details just keep falling out of my head.

Marty and Jimmy always thought they'd be best friends for life, but two recent events have strained their friendship.  Marty's parents sent her to an all-girls school and Jimmy came out and started making new friends in the local gay community.  Marty finds a way to bridge the old and the new by joining her school's performance of Into the Woods.  Boys are needed for the musical, so some of Jimmy's friends can be in it and the rest can be crew.  And Marty definitely thinks things are looking up when she's cast as Little Red Riding Hood against the very attractive Felix Peroni as the Wolf.  (Clearly, she doesn't take that as a symbolic bad sign.)

I liked that both Marty and Jimmy made new friends once they were separated.  Jimmy takes to it a little bit better, but Marty does find other girls she can hang with, especially Xiang.  I also enjoyed Linas Alsenas explorations of her failures to be socially adept, such as when she ostracizes someone herself even though she didn't mean to be cruel.  Her difficulties navigating what other people are feeling felt realistic.  So did her trouble understanding and articulating her own feelings, especially when she got something she thought she wanted only to discover she wasn't feeling it at all.

I think BEYOND CLUELESS will appeal to young theater fans, especially since it doesn't ignore the importance of the crew.  Jimmy's relatively easy coming out probably holds more appeal than more dated portrayals.  Marty's difficulties with her relationship with Felix are handled well.  Generally, I can't point to anything in BEYOND CLUELESS I didn't like.  Remembering that I read it is the only problem.

Review: Femme

By Mette Bach
Available now from Lorimer
Review copy

SideStreets is Lorimer's series of hi-lo books.  I've written about these types of books before, but it has been awhile.  Hi-lo books are written to appeal to struggling readers.  They have content that appeals to teens, but are written at a range of lower reading levels.  FEMME is written at an approximately third-grade reading level.  I really appreciate that SideStreets and Mette Bach are making LGBT stories available for readers who are still developing their skills, since there isn't much reading material on the subject available below a high-school reading level.

Sofia, the protagonist of FEMME, doesn't feel like she has much going for herself aside from her popular boyfriend Paul.  When her English teacher pairs her with class genius Clea, Sofia is worried about being judged for being dumb.  But the two girls end up being fast friends and Clea helps Sofia nurture her study skills.  In fact, the two girls decide to take a trip to the US together and look at schools in Portland.  Clea wants to go to Portland because she's a lesbian - the only out one at their Canadian high school - and she wants to find a community that she fits into.  To Sofia's surprise, she starts to find where she fits too.

FEMME might be simply written, but it is also sensitively written.  Sofia and Clea feel like real teenage girls, particularly Sofia.  She begins the novel shallow, with low self-esteem, but she makes amazing strides throughout the story.  And even though the page count is short, Bach doesn't just tackle a romance.  She tackles issues of identity involving sexuality, race, and class.  There is a subplot about cyberbullying too.  It all moves by quickly.  However, while things are lightly covered, they don't feel lightweight.

FEMME is a novel that fills a niche that desperately needs something.  Fortunately, there's much more reason to read it than just because it feels a need.  It's got wonderful characters, a strong setting, and it tackles real-world issues in a manner that is positive but not treacly.  I found FEMME to be surprisingly sweet.

Review: Goodbye Stranger

By Rebecca Stead
Available now from Wendy Lamb Books (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Rebecca Stead won the Newbery Award for her second novel and became the first non-British author to win the Guardian Award for her third novel.  It's quite the pedigree, so expectations are understandably high for GOODBYE STRANGER, her fourth novel.

GOODBYE STRANGER mostly focuses on a group of thirteen-year old girls.  Like its protagonists straddle the world of children and teens, GOODBYE STRANGER straddles middle grade and YA.  It is a book that lives in liminal spaces.  Bridge, who narrates the most often, survived a horrific accident and has internalized that that means she's meant for more.  But more what? 

Her best friends Emily and Tabitha seem to be growing away from her, and all three struggle to navigate the changes in their friendship.  Emily has physically matured the fastest, and she's getting resulting attention from guys.  Tabitha, meanwhile, has fallen into the first blush of feminist fervor.  Sherm is a boy who tells most of his story through letters to his grandfather that he doesn't seem.  An unnamed narrator tells her story aside from the others, in a different time and an older place but still struggling with past friends and who she wants to be with or without them.

The threads of Bridge, Sherm, and You's stories come together in delightful ways.  Stead writes with a deft lightness that conceals just how much work she's doing to make all the pieces fit.  It also helps keep the book suitable for younger readers while appealing to older ones.  The darkest storyline in GOODBYE STRANGER involves scandalous photos texted between an underage girl and guy.  It's tackled perhaps with too much optimism, but I liked how the consequences and hurt were dealt with in a way that made it clear that made it clear that many dumb decisions were made but that it wasn't wrong for the girl to have sexual feelings.

GOODBYE STRANGER is another terrific novel from a celebrated author in children's fiction.  There's definitely a reason to get excited about a release from Stead.

Review: Six Impossible Things

By Fiona Wood
Available now from Poppy (Hachette)
Review copy

Dan Cereill had a pretty cushy life, but now his parents are divorced and he's living in his mom in a historically protected house that smells terrible.  Among other things, he just wants to not be a complete loser and to be a good guy (unlike his dad, who he blames for the divorce).

I've heard about Fiona Wood through The Bookish Manicurist, who maintains a list of recommended Aussie YA.  I haven't read WILDLIFE yet, but I'm definitely going to check it out based on how much I enjoyed SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS.  Dan seems a bit advanced for his age (he's fourteen), but he was still a believable teenage boy.  I liked the way high school, girl, and family problems blended together and that learning to navigate one helped Dan out with others.

The supporting cast is also likeable, from Estelle (the girl next door he has a crush on) to his other neighbor's girlfriend who is always available to help out a friend.  I particularly liked Dan's mother, who is struggling to build a business to support her and Dan.  Unfortunately, she went into wedding cakes.  She has the skill, but it isn't the most suitable job for a recent divorcee.  The running gag of her breaking up future marriages goes on long enough to go from funny to not funny, and back around to funny.

I liked that Dan isn't instantly forgiven for his mistakes, but has to work to make amends.  I also liked that he understood the things he does wrong in pursuit of his six impossible things.  At the same time, he also does a number of good things in his struggle.  He listens to people, gets involved, and is generally proactive.  I like a protagonist who goes after what they want.

SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS is a breezy read for the younger YA set.  It's also a nice change of pace from most contemporary YA thanks to the Australian setting.

Review: The Porcupine of Truth

By Bill Konigsberg
Available now from Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic)
Review copy
Read my review of  Openly Straight

Last year I read a Bill Konigsberg novel for the first time.  OPENLY STRAIGHT was a good summer read, but not one of my favorites of the year or anything.  His recent release, THE PORCUPINE OF TRUTH, still caught my attention with its adorable cover and a blurb that promised an epic road trip.

The story starts when Carson's mom leaves him at the zoo.  They've come to Billings, Montana for the summer to help his dying father in his final days, and she needs to ditch him for a bit to take care of things.  At the zoo Carson meets Aisha, who has been kicked out by her father because she's a lesbian.  It's the beginning of a fast friendship between two weirdos with similarly off-beat senses of humor. 

Yes, there is an epic road trip.  Carson and Aisha set out to find what happened to Carson's grandfather.  He was a missing person, but they found evidence in the basement that he was in contact with his wife after he officially disappeared.  I liked that their road trip encounters a lot of problems, including car trouble and difficulty finding places to stay.  It's a pretty realistic road trip for two teenagers without many resources and rapidly dwindling parental approval.

There is a lot of religious discussion, which doesn't bother me, but I know isn't everyone's cup of tea.  Carson doesn't really believe in anything, and Aisha is turning against her childhood beliefs since her very Christian father treated her in such an un-Christlike way.  On their road trip, they encounter people who believe a variety of different things and discuss them.  I thought it was a good reflection of reality and very revealing of all the characters.

THE PORCUPINE OF TRUTH is a very funny novel that tackles tough subjects like alcoholism, homeless LGBTQ youth, and racism.  (Aisha is black.)  The irreverent tone balances the dark matter without being disrespectful of it.  Definitely worth a read.

Review: Don't Ever Change

By M. Beth Bloom
Available now from HarperTeen (HarperCollins)
Review copy

Eva wants to be a writer, but she's thrown for a loop right before the summer after her senior year when her teacher tells her that her story feels fake and that she needs to learn to write what she knows.  Eva makes a pact with herself to get out there and do things this summer, to experience things so that she can be a better writer.

It's honestly a good plan.  Eva makes some good inroads too, by taking a chance with cute stranger Elliot and taking a job as a camp counselor with her friend Foster.  But changing yourself is a tough road, especially when your default is to coast and let others be the movers and shakers.

Eva has the same problem as many of her main characters: she's a hard person to like.  She can be abrupt and overly critical.  She has a tendency to focus on her own problems (like most teenagers).  She's often overly convinced of her own right-ness.  This sometimes made reading her point of view in DON'T EVER CHANGE unpleasant, but it also made her a believable teen girl.

DON'T EVER CHANGE feels very realistic all around, despite Eva's obsession with shoving her life story into something literary and writeable.  There's a pettiness and mundanity to it.  This does mean that at times I long for more events.  Even a death is barely a blip in the story, someone Eva didn't really know.  Nothing really happens except for her personal journey.  If you don't get invested in that, there's no point in reading the book.

I did enjoy Eva's complicated love life.  She has a long-distance boyfriend and a guy she makes out with and another flirtation and it sort of just is.  The only issues with Eva having multiple relationships is when there's competitions for the same guys.  At the same time, as a counselor Eva is in charge of a thirteen-year-old in a relationship with another thirteen-year-old.  She's got to figure out what boundaries are appropriate for adults to set for children, because that's where she is now.

DON'T EVER CHANGE is not an easily approachable book.  It might even be a shock to fans of the author, since M. Beth Bloom's first book involved vampires.  But I do think it is a book that will resonate with pricklier girls, with those people who try but just have trouble expressing themselves to others.

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Review: Anything Could Happen

By Will Walton
Available now from Push (Scholastic)
Review copy

Will Walton's debut novel ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN is sweet, if rather uneventful.  Tretch is closeted and deeply in love with his straight best friend, Matt.  Lots of people joke about them being gay, since Matt has two dads, and Tretch is torn about the fact that he secretly wishes it were true.

ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN is a terrific character study.  Tretch is a nice kid and it is heartening to see him grow confident in himself and open up to his family and friends (old and new).  I can see ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN being cathartic for teens struggling with the same issues that plague Tretch.  Do you tell someone you have a crush when you know they won't reciprocate?  Will your religious parents accept you?

There's potential for conflict in ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.  Beyond the issue of coming out (or not), Tretch has another secret: he loves to dance and choreographs dances to his favorite songs.  There's also Matt's new girlfriend, who Tretch feels jealous of.  Or there's the girl whose abrasiveness is hiding her crush on Tretch.  But everything comes to a head in a soft, gentle manner.  This is just a very soothing sort of book, the kind that tells you things will work out alright even when they seem dire at the time.

ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN is a pleasant read, with its optimistic realism.  It is not for those who are looking for an eventful, plotty book, but it is not without its charms.  Sometimes short and sweet gets the job done.

Review: Trouble is a Friend of Mine

By Stephanie Tromly
Available now from Kathy Dawson Books (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

TROUBLE IS A FRIEND OF MINE is an incredibly fitting title.  When Zoe Webster's parents divorce and she moves to a new town and school, her first new friend is the enigmatic Digby.  Digby gets her into all sorts of trouble, including the sort that convinces her to run back into an exploding building (and that ends up on her permanent record).

TROUBLE IS A FRIEND OF MINE is a very over-the-top book.  The personalities are large, the plot is fast paced, and the interweaving tales of sordid crime are told as a slapstick comedy.  It was perfect reading for waiting to get on a plane.  It was quick and funny and didn't take itself seriously, but the subject matter still got under my skin.

It helped that I really liked the characters.  Zoe is struggling to define who she is, especially now that she's living farther from her overbearing father and starting to realize that her spacey mother maybe isn't so oblivious.  (Hint to most teenagers: your parents probably are less oblivious than you think.)  Digby is the sort of person who only exists in books, but he works here.  I like how as the truth is uncovered, more and more of his actions make sense.  I also liked his former/current best friend Henry, who gets wrapped up into helping them and getting into trouble with them.  He makes for a nice contrast with Digby as the second male lead.  I thought the supporting cast worked well too, including the mean girl who goes along for the ride during the climax.

Zoe and Digby's search for a missing girl throws them into the path of a pervert, local (and not-so-local) drug dealers, rogue cops, a cult, and a flat-out bully.  It also livens up their night at the school dance quite a bit.  Pretty much all the trouble the teens get into is preposterous, but the characterization and neat plotting keep TROUBLE IS A FRIEND OF MINE clicking along.

I hope that Stephanie Tromly plans to write more of these three characters, although she does leave them in a good place.  Even if she doesn't, I'm sure her next book will also be a riot.

Review: The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek

By Seth Rudetsky
Available now from Random House BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

I haven't read MY AWESOME/AWFUL POPULARITY PLAN, the first book about Justin by veteran Broadway pianist Seth Rudetsky.  However, I was able to follow THE RISE AND FALL OF A THEATER GEEK just fine without it.  Justin is a rather abrasive narrator.  His mind is a little like a hamster running constantly around a wheel, and he thinks he knows best for everyone.  I still liked him.

Justin makes several mistakes at the beginning of THE RISE AND FALL OF A THEATER GEEK.  He pushes his boyfriend Spencer and best friend Becky too hard, and ends up alienating them.  He also lies to the woman who lined up an internship for him to get out of it because he got a better internship working directly for a heartthrob making his Broadway debut.  I found the second particularly naive of Justin, since most people understand you giving up one opportunity for another that fits your goals better.  Lying, however, is less understandable.

THE RISE AND FALL OF A THEATER GEEK weaves together Justin's personal growth over his internship in New York with a mystery about why his employer is making such terrible acting decisions and what his agent is up to.  The mystery is pretty obvious, so it's good that Justin's character growth is done with more nuance to balance it.  Although Spencer and Becky aren't seen much in the novel due to the fight, I liked that they're shown to have gone on their own journeys.  I like supporting characters with their own lives.

You might try reading a sample of THE RISE AND FALL OF A THEATER GEEK first, because Justin's voice might not work for you.  If it does, this is a fairly cute bildungsroman with some nice details about how a Broadway show comes to be.  It's pretty predictable, but I can see theater kids loving this one.